Help, I can't finish RPGs anymore

[PCG Tom]

I am cursed!

https://www.pcgamer.com/help-i-cant-finish-rpgs-anymore/

Does anyone else suffer from this affliction? My shame pile keeps on growing.

 

[PCG Phil]

I have the same thing, but usually manage to drag myself back after an obligatory six-month-to-two-year break. I'm finally on the last few missions of the Witcher 3, having got back into it for the first time in three years. Hopefully it won't take me another few years to complete the expansions too.

 

[Skoldier29]

I can relate to this... especially with MMORPGs like WoW. I Used to LOVE WoW and played it religiously. Now I see they have a new patch and a pre-order bonus for the next expansion. It sounds fun to me and I'd love to play it again.. but I've been away from the game for months and jumping back in and learning everything that has changed simply seems like too much work.

 

[jpishgar]

I could not, for the life of me, finish The Outer Worlds.
Or Divinity 2. I try!

Not for lack of attempt, either. For some reason, the more side questy the narrative the harder time I have.

 

[Hveðrungr]

My problem is when the game updates and breaks my thousand mods. It's too disheartening to have to reload them all, but I don't want to play without them.

 

[Balf Eubank]

I have the same problem, except I always end up back in Oblivion spam-saving at sigil stones and planting fingers in desks.

 

[Pyronaught]

I just recently started Dragon Quest XI and I hope that with how straightforward it is I'll actually able to stick with it . But I really like you're idea of just making yourself spend 10 minutes, because I believe just that step of loading into the game is mentally the hardest part for me as well.

 

[mkultrafanboy]

I think you guys need MMORPGs. They don't require thought and you can play at your own pace. Final Fantasy 14 is the best of them.

 

[Krud]

I am cursed!

https://www.pcgamer.com/help-i-cant-finish-rpgs-anymore/

Does anyone else suffer from this affliction? My shame pile keeps on growing.

Same here one the shame pile front.

Sadly, for me this isn't even a new phenomenon. It first started with Daggerfall, and then Baldur's Gate. Those are the forefathers of my shame pile lineage. I am determined to finish one of those before I die, however. (Or after, but that would probably be trickier.) Daggerfall Unity is helping with the former, and as for the latter, I re-purchased Baldur's Gate in its 'enhanced' form. So we'll see.


The secret is to probably have only one RPG installed at a time and not install another until you've finished that one. But new ones keep showing up!

 

[Krud]

My problem is when the game updates and breaks my thousand mods. It's too disheartening to have to reload them all, but I don't want to play without them.

That's a good point.. I'd probably have made more progress in Skyrim were I not starting over every time I'm unable to move forward with my mod configuration. (I've run into that with my lastest saves at Level 51, I can play it, but any time I save, the game crashes [and doesn't save]. So... yeah.)

 

[jpishgar]

I think you guys need MMORPGs. They don't require thought and you can play at your own pace. Final Fantasy 14 is the best of them.

You aren't wrong! I do sometimes use Elder Scrolls Online as an almost idling game. It doesn't require tremendous thought, and does provide a fairly low-maintenance stream of entertainment. I've tried Final Fantasy 14 no fewer than 6 times now. I reached level 60 during my last go around, and I'd been told by so very many people that "That's when the game gets good!" I can't. I just can't. I returned to the Waking Sands so many times I thought I was in an Eorzean version of Groundhog Day.

 

[mkultrafanboy]

MMORPGs are what you're looking for. They require no thought and you can play at your own pace. Final Fantasy 14 is the best, and also Elder Scrolls Online and SWTOR

 

[mkultrafanboy]

You aren't wrong! I do sometimes use Elder Scrolls Online as an almost idling game. It doesn't require tremendous thought, and does provide a fairly low-maintenance stream of entertainment. I've tried Final Fantasy 14 no fewer than 6 times now. I reached level 60 during my last go around, and I'd been told by so very many people that "That's when the game gets good!" I can't. I just can't. I returned to the Waking Sands so many times I thought I was in an Eorzean version of Groundhog Day.

Yea the massive amounts of cut scenes gets tiring but I still like the game a lot. I own ESO but don't like the combat at all, story and graphics was good tho. I'll give it another try after ff14

 

[Raistlin Majere]

So very correct!! I was just thinking this myself! I was surging through Divinity-Original Sin 2 in early Dec, making it into the city of Driftwood, right before Christmas... meeting and talking to all the NPC's all of a sudden became a huge "chore" and felt boring.. I found myself barely wanting to read their replies and felt that I didn't care anymore about side quests and what not.. I then tried to spice it up a bit diving into Pillar of Eternity (via Xboc games pass), which after running through the first town (and difficult temple/dungeon below) I quickly drifted away from that game!.. I was getting frustrated for myself for not following through rpg's, which is unlike me..
.. luckily, I pushed myself back into DOS2 and decided to take a different approach!! hack and slash it up!- KILL EVERY NPC I encounter except for critical quest npc's.. The city of Driftwood now has a population of 1 lizard (Siva) and 2 chickens out behind the inn... and guess what - I'm loving the game again, back into it full force!! lol.. ... your article really resonated with me, thanks!!!!

 

[Johnny]

I can't even get started with them anymore. It used to be my favourite genre, but I just can't anymore.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

I'm having the same issue, but usually not only with RPG's. Just mod single player (story) games. For some reason I keep going back to the few games I like and they're all sandbox (Dota 2, ETS2, Cities: Skylines).

Whenever I start an RPG I'll have to see if I like it first, then I decide that I want to finish it and I don't. I had to restart the witcher 3 times because I forgot all the controls and needed the tutorial to relearn them. But that kind of burns me out of the game because I already know the first 2 hours of the story so it gets boring. I just have to force myself to continue with the game. It's not that I dislike doing that, but if I don't the game just sticks in my library for months or years without me touching it again.

I played DA:O for about 30 hours and enjoyed it alot. For some reason I stopped playing and now I just can't be bothered to either continue or restart.

There's actually a plus side from Skyrim with the Alternative Start mod, you can restart the game without having to go through that annoying intro video everytime you start a new game.

It took me 4 years to finish GTA5, which I think is not an RPG but yet, I found it hard to finish. Could it be that those games just tend to be too long? Even when interesting, 180 hours for a game is alot of time. Tomb Raider games I finished in 15-30 hours each, which seems a pretty good timing for me. Let's me finish a game after about 2 weeks of playing and after 2 weeks what happened on day 1 can be pretty fresh in your mind.

Another issue for me might be that I tend to try too many games at the same time so I might end up messing up controls. When playing Skyrim and Oblivion, they both have very different controls for the same actions.

 

[Kamaz]

That's why I am making my RPG intentionally short - I don't have much time to play games and there are tons of games out there, it makes sense that they are bite-sized. I intended my game to be completed in one sitting, one evening. But you can replay it again next day (hence the non-linearity and replayability is important)!

 

[Krud]

I could not, for the life of me, finish The Outer Worlds.
Or Divinity 2. I try!

Not for lack of attempt, either. For some reason, the more side questy the narrative the harder time I have.

For some reason I found Outer Worlds to be (relatively) light on the sidequest front. Or at the very least, most of the side quests felt relevant to the main story to me. I'm trying to think of one with fewer side quests, and the only thing I can come up with is the Mass Effect series, which... I would say veered away from its RPG underpinnings after the first installment.

 

[Drahkken]

Ugh... Same... I think it really comes down to being work. I already have enough to track in real life, family drama, friend drama, work drama, the random orphans on the TV, and now they want me to care about some peasant's long lost lover and please deliver this note for her?

Yeah, as soon as they let me off the spine of the story, which I crave cause I hate feeling trapped in a linear movie, then I start having to feel bad about who or what I care about. I judge myself when I don't help that lady find her kid. Like, am I a bad person if I don't care about everyone I meet in a video-game? (Yes of course!)

So yeah, it'd help if the side quests didn't seem so banal. Or if they let me game the experience instead of tugging at my heart-strings. I don't have as many Fs to give as it takes to finish most of these...

 

[JSimenhoff]

Over the course of 2019 I started Final Fantasy VI, Divinity 2 for the second time, The Outer Worlds, and Steamworld Quest. Did not complete any of them. Came close in Divinity 2, but I got distracted by something over the course of the final act.

The only darn game I finished was Slay the Spire, and even that is questionable (does it ever truly end???)

 

[Frindis]

The question @PCG Tom, why should you complete the game(s)? I have accumulated about 1,5K games over the last decade and in those different libraries, I have a lot of RPGs I have yet to finish, amongst other genres of games. I enjoyed Divinity Original Sin 2 immensely for 122hours, but there is a big chance I will never finish the last chapter. Does it really matter? Not for me at least. The joy of playing a game the way I like and for as long as I like weighs more for me, than any pressure of having to finish it. Of course, one could argue that having to many games make this a more common problem, but at the same time, it also opens up for the fun in experiencing all sorts of games.

Right now, I am enjoying Outward and it has given me an exploration rush that I have not felt in a long time. I am taking my time in exploring every nook and cranny and by doing that, there is also a big chance I will never get to an end. Playing with permadeath and knowing that each and every fight might just be last, THAT is the adventure I can think of with fond memories or talk to others about.

If I am to stretch it even further: In real life, we all die, yet we do not talk much about the end, do we? It is the adventure and the experience of living that makes the ride so interesting and not the end. The end could actually be quite boring.

 

[MorganPark]

I don't play many RPGs, but I can't even seem to finish the ones I start. Divinity 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition are on my shame pile. Despite Disco Elysium being more visual novel than traditional RPG, I still appreciate it was a very consumable 15 hours or so.

EDIT: Holy cow, I have 34 hours in Disco. Still, relatively short!

 

[Dan]

So many RPGs that I've started but never finished. Divinity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (but I only just got that game), Witcher 3, Deus Ex HR, Dragons Dogma, Fallout 4, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Pillars of Eternity. And that is just to name a few!

 

[Rustledstardust]

I've honestly had the same issues with Pillars of Eternity, I love the lore and how immersive the world is.

Problem is if I spend more than a week away from it I feel like I need to relearn much of what I've already gone over.

 

[Umaru]

Yep, RPG's are dead. Soon we'll only have mobile games.